On a normal day, Majken Friss Jorgensen, managing director of Copenhagen's biggest limousine company, says her firm has twelve vehicles on the road. During the "summit to save the world", which opens here tomorrow, she will have 200.

"We thought they were not going to have many cars, due to it being a climate convention," she says. "But it seems that somebody last week looked at the weather report."

Ms Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand," she says. "We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden."

And the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? "Five," says Ms Jorgensen. "The government has some alternative fuel cars but the rest will be petrol or diesel. We don't have any hybrids in Denmark, unfortunately, due to the extreme taxes on those cars. It makes no sense at all, but it's very Danish."

The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports - or to Sweden - to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers.

As well 15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists and 98 world leaders, the Danish capital will be blessed by the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio, Daryl Hannah, Helena Christensen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Prince Charles. A Republican US senator, Jim Inhofe, is jetting in at the head of an anti-climate-change "Truth Squad." The top hotels - all fully booked at £650 a night - are readying their Climate Convention menus of (no doubt sustainable) scallops, foie gras and sculpted caviar wedges.

I am trying to emulate these brave reformers. In that spirit, I drove all the way across town to take my daughter to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert -- very likely the band with the largest carbon footprint in the world (if you have seen their concerts, you know what I mean).

They aren't kidding about the taxes on new vehicles. I've heard from several Europeans that altogether the taxes on new vehicles can cost more than the retail price of the car itself.

http://www.itsaboutmakingbabies.com/ Brad K.

I wonder if the climate convention might outlaw unions and taxes, as being obstructions to making effective changes. Nah.

morganovich

the danes have the highest new car taxes in europe. they are roughly 200%. no that's not a typo.
this has the perverse effect of keeping old, dirty, fuel inefficient cars on the road FOREVER.

in the "let them eat cake" department:

Some 40,000 tons of carbon will be spewed getting this crowd (for the climate conference in copenhagen) together and keeping them in comfort.

That is the amount of carbon dioxide produced by more than 60 of the world's smaller countries in an entire year -- combined.

i'm sure there's some way not to view this crowd as a bunch of entitled hypocritical halfwits, but damned if i can figure it out...

Glenn Geist

Listen, this is exactly the kind of hypocritical insanity we can expect from this group. My only real comment is the observation that this would be an ideal place for a 10-megaton airburst...this week only, while all the idiots are in one place. No, I don't have a problem advocating the deaths of those who want to take away our liberty with the policies that the espouse.

http://thegameiam.livejournal.com David

I have a problem advocating the death of anyone due to their beliefs, and think that's appalling.

I certainly do hope that the folks who want to reduce liberty are defeated soundly.

roger the shrubber

"defeat them soundly", david? how? you mean like leaking to the entire world their private notes that *prove* they've been lying, obfuscating, suppressing dissent, and - according to their own computer code - just making up whatever numbers they needed to advance their holy AGW religion? defeat them like that?

yeah, that's worked out well so far. even though they *know* we know, they're carrying on as if it never happened. this dipshit conference; the EPA today proclaiming that CO2 - that gas that every mammal on earth exhales - is a 'dangerous gas'; the unmistakably intentional deluge of scary AGW stories recently that go hand-in-hand with the absolute refusal of the state-owned media organs to mention climategate? they know it's a lie. we know it's a lie. they know we know it's a lie. and they're STILL going to foist it upon us, cost and lost jobs be damned. they're the proven-in-their-own words enemies of truth, therefore, they're the enemies of freedom. and, like the cockroaches they are, they never give up; they never quit trying to infest your life; and they can't be reasoned with.

i vote for the airburst over the conference roof. no need to go nuclear, mind you: that's what MOAB's are for. this is very important, david - you have to understand we're not calling for their deaths "due to their beliefs", because that would be mean-spirited and just plain **wrong**. no, what we're calling for is an act of community activism, an act of speaking truth to power just like president hopeychange does to help save the livelihoods of millions of people, especially poor people in the 3rd world who depend on us to buy their crap from them. how can you be against that? are you against freedom? is it that you want people to lose their jobs from this idiotic notion they're pushing? you know, job losses hit women and minorities the hardest. do you hate women? are you a racist?

http://thegameiam.livejournal.com David

Roger,

comments like yours, with that tone, are the kind that are picked out by lots of folks with whom I presume you vehemently disagree and held out as "proof" that anyone who disagrees with the party line must be a nut or be inciting violence. Violence is not a joking matter, and while I understand that the issues are serious, the soap and ballot boxes are the appropriate response, not the ammo box.

I do believe that more folks are turning away from the modern-day religion of anthropogenic global warming; there are a lot of folks looking at what skeptics say and do. Make sure your words and actions are ones which you stand behind, even if they are taken out of context, because they will be. Remember that those with whom you disagree are eager to portray you as a nut - don't make their job easier.

roger the shrubber

david - you're worried that my somewhat acid commentary, along with my ungracious tone (!), is going to alienate the leftist/statist/warmists who're trying so very hard to deliver me into serfdom? that by allowing them to 'take my comments out of context', i'm somehow giving up any chance i have to win them over with careful, reasoned facts and figures? are you frickin' *kidding* me?!?

as has been amply and repeatedly demonstrated these last 2 weeks, and o so many times before, **words and facts mean nothing to these people.** climategate is being IGNORED. their own words (and computer code) indicate that they view lying as just another tool in their arsenal. their own emails conform what we've all known for years: dissenting opinions, no matter how well-researched, are ignored, blackballed, destroyed, or shoved into a corner. when that doesn't work, they just hysterically shout the blasphemers down - as semi-famous celebrity ed begley jr. showed us last week. (youtube it.) why do you think gore won't debate bjorn lomborg? lomborg is the soul of calm, polite equanimity - and they run from him like a scalded dog. it's why they do their best to pretend limbaugh and coulter don't exist: they know they can't win the debate, so they just smear them and pretend they're not there, knowing that limbaugh and coulter will win any debate any time. easier just to call them fatty and skinny.

my words will harm us if they're taken out of context? the left will pounce on these mean ol' words, because they don't countenance that kind of talk? what planet are you living on, david? remember how famed liberal KOS gave the liberal epitaph for the 4 american contractors killed and burned in iraq? he said, "f*** 'em." rather than being driven from the web and all polite discourse in shame, he's still with us today: one of the left's bright shining stars.

i'm not going to allow the left, or their AGW moron stooges, to force me to play by the rules they set for me - but not for them. 'don't bring a knife to a gunfight' and all that. if you want to meekly raise your hand to gain permission (from them) to speak, and timidly mewl "i respectfully differ", you go right ahead. but you're going to fail, and get eaten alive doing it. i've noticed many young folks, having been duly brainwashed in school, like to point to gandhi and m.l. king as the template for resistance to tyranny: "teacher said nonviolent resistance is best and will always win in the end."

it'll win, sure, **but only if you're resisting civilized people.** had gandhi or king tried those tactics in a nation controlled by left-wing fascists such as today's AGW schutzstaffel, they'd have been ground to dust instantly. their cause would not have emerged triumphant, because no one would have ever known of their cause. see: ukraine 1932-33; hungary 1956; czechoslovakia 1968; china 1989; iraqi kurdistan 1992; iran 2009... and so many others. think those dissenters would have won the day if they'd just been more polite and measured in their speech and tone? you think maybe the hundreds of thousands who've been butchered in sudan's darfur territory would still be alive if they'd merely not allowed their words to be taken out of context?

look how well being meek and soft-spoken is serving the republicans in the cap-and-trade and healthcare atrocities. they're being ignored and run over. "we'll pass it without any republicans!" - chuck schumer (asshole, NY)

helluva a plan there, dude. could you BE more naive?

O Bloody Hell

> iâ€™m sure thereâ€™s some way not to view this crowd as a bunch of entitled hypocritical halfwits, but damned if i can figure it outâ€¦

Just use the technique all libtards do -- hysterical blindness.

> david â€“ youâ€™re worried that my somewhat acid commentary, along with my ungracious tone (!), is going to alienate the leftist/statist/warmists whoâ€™re trying so very hard to deliver me into serfdom? that by allowing them to â€˜take my comments out of contextâ€™, iâ€™m somehow giving up any chance i have to win them over with careful, reasoned facts and figures? are you frickinâ€™ *kidding* me?!?

David, while his hyperbole is certainly capable of being misused by The Opposition, his point is correct -- they aren't a rational bunch you can find common ground with, any more than you can with Ahminajad and his ilk.

They seek power. "Over you, over me, over that man behind the tree". And they are the enemies of all that I hold dear as an American. While I personally am not yet threatened enough to resort to arms, I can see that day looming when I, and many, many others like me, will be. "We live in interesting times" -- even if the euphemism is apocryphal, its truth value is the same.

And, frankly, were someone to do as roger suggests (with or with out the "Ni!", or even a herring) I wouldn't shed a single tear, say a good word for the dead, or push for much of an effort to find the guilty. These people are the enemies of mankind. That they are very very subtle about it does not change THAT.